L'enfant de la Tristesse
by cinnamon badge
Summary: [DracoGinny] Tristan's Aunt Fleur has a name for him that she only uses when she thinks he's not listening. She calls him l'enfant de la tristesse, the child of sorrow...


**A/N:** Written for the 100quills challenge on lj. Prompt #42: memory. Harry Potter is not mine.

**L'enfant de la Tristesse**

Tristan was eight years old the first time anyone mentioned his mother.

Up until that point, he had seriously wondered if he even had one. It was almost as though he had just appeared on the doorstep of his father's house, a tiny bundle in pale blue blankets, and his father had seen nothing better to do than to take him in. But that one mention -- that _tantalizing_ phrase uttered by his grandmum -- "Why, don't you just look more and more like your mum every day" -- and Tristan became desperate for more.

"Who is my mummy, Grandmum?" he pleaded, giving her the pouty eyes that he knew got him pretty much anything he wanted. "What's her name?"

His grandmum had gone white after her slip, and tears welled in her tired blue eyes. "Oh, darling," she said, pulling Tristan towards her in a bone-crushing hug, "I would tell you in an instant if I could. You know that, don't you?"

"But why can't you, Grandmum?"

"Your daddy," she said. She wiped halfheartedly at the tears sliding down her face. "I told your daddy we wouldn't speak about her until he was ready, and I never go back on my promises." Her face had abruptly changed to one of false gaiety. "And I promised you this morning that we'd bake some cookies and take them to Granddad at the Ministry! So how does that sound?"

Tristan rarely saw his father, but he heard plenty about him. How he had been a war hero, like Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron, but no one gave him the same kind of praise they gave other war heroes. How he had never wanted to be considered a hero in the first place, not out of modesty, but out of sheer embarrassment. Grandmum had pulled out an old box of newspaper clippings one rainy afternoon and showed them to him, and Tristan had discovered a tall, thin, pale young man with flashing eyes and a grim mouth. He looked ready to conquer the world, single-handedly.

He had gone to his father later that day, and tried to ask him about those times immediately following the war he had heard so much about. "Daddy?" Tristan said, twisting the hem of his shirt nervously between his fingers. "Can I ask you a question?"

His father was in his study by the fire, as he always was after supper, nursing a glass of some golden liquid that made him wince when it went down. He made a careless gesture with his hands. "Of course you can, Tris," he said, sounding exhausted. "Come here where I can see you."

Tristan stepped into the warm circle of light radiating from the hearth, trying to gather his thoughts. "Daddy, were you really a hero? A hero like in the books Grandmum reads with me?"

His father stiffened in his chair. "A hero?" he drawled. Tristan hated it when he used that voice. "Hardly, Tris. I acted out of fear for my own life, and if I happened to save some other lives along the way, it was completely unintentional." He turned his hard eyes on Tristan, and Tristan felt as though his father were looking right through him. "Don't dwell on the past," he said. His voice started to waver. "Live now. The past is too --" He turned away and hid his face. "Just leave me alone!"

Tristan ran out of the room in a hurry. He looked back, just once, to see his father bent over in his chair, shaking silently. He shut the door behind him when he left.

He didn't spend very much time at home, not even before he left for Hogwarts. There were summers spent with his other grandmother in Switzerland, a beautiful woman with long, almost-white hair; and winters spent in France with his Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur, and his cousins Mathieu and Philip. He loved being in France with them, though Aunt Fleur would call him _l'enfant de la tristesse_ behind his back, and Uncle Bill wouldn't tell him what it meant. Then there were long afternoons and weekends spent at his Grandmum and Granddad's house, called the Burrow -- and all in all, only a few empty weeks that he spent in his father's home, a massive mansion that felt more like a haunted house or a mausoleum than anything else.

And in all of that time, no one mentioned Tristan's mother. He eventually realized, once he grew a bit older and understood things a bit better, that Grandmum and Granddad were his mother's parents, and Uncle Bill and Uncle Ron and all his relatives were her family. He realized that she must have been a Gryffindor, for when he was sorted into that house in his first year at Hogwarts, they had all laughed at what they called "the irony." Malfoys had been Slytherins for centuries, the Sorting Hat had told him so, but the Hat had told him something else too:

"_You have your mother's heart, child_," it had murmured in his brain. "_Good and generous, and kind and loving. Oh yes, you are a Slytherin in many ways, no doubt about that, but the best fit for you would be GRYFFINDOR!_" Professor McGonagall, the Headmistress of Hogwarts, had smiled broadly at him as he took a seat at the Gryffindor table, while the students sitting at the Slytherin table had given him dark looks, including his best friend, Timothy Nott.

His father's reaction had been the most interesting, however. When Tristan went home for Christmas, his father had laughed dryly towards the ceiling. "The final joke," he said, seemingly to no one. "What a sense of humor the gods have."

"You wanted me to be in Slytherin, didn't you," Tristan said sadly.

His father narrowed his eyes at him for a moment, before shrugging and turning away. "Your grandfather would have had a fit had he been here, I know," he said. "But I -- well, Gryffindor is a good house." He gave Tristan a shy smile. "Had you been sorted into Hufflepuff, _then_ I would have had some sharp words." Tristan laughed with him, with his father, and felt his heart surge in his chest at being able to share this with him.

He learned something new about his father during his first years at Hogwarts -- he was excellent at helping with homework. It had started innocently enough, with Tristan dutifully writing home to tell him about school, and at the end of his letter he had tacked on a complaint about how he just couldn't grasp the latest charm they were doing in Professor Flitwick's class. His owl, Pygmalion, had come back with a long letter from home, detailing exactly how the wand movement and spell pronunciation was done, and a reminder to keep up his grades. "Malfoys are always at the top of their class," his father wrote. "Except for me, but I don't suppose there's anyone like Aunt Hermione in your year, is there? I don't suppose there ever will be. She's one of a kind, your aunt, and I will deny ever saying that if you repeat it."

Tristan came home from his second year feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time, for he had spent the entire spring term looking forward to his father's letters, reveling in a side of him that he had never before been privy to. His father had a dry sense of humor that cracked Tristan up, and a way of explaining tricky spells that trumped anything his professors could say or do. "My ancestors would turn in their graves," he wrote, when Tristan suggested he become a teacher. "Besides, if I taught at Hogwarts, you would lose your edge over the other students, and we don't want that, do we?"

That was the summer things started changing; the year that Tristan and his father started actually spending time together, as they had never done so long as Tristan had been alive. They went on holidays to India and Australia, and visited estranged friends in foreign places. They went to Italy for the Quidditch World Cup, and Tristan learned then that his father owned two domestic Quidditch teams. "The Falmouth Falcons, since my father bought them," he said. "They were and still are the team I cheer for. And then the Chudley Cannons, because --" He suddenly stopped, swallowed, and changed the subject. Tristan was saddened to learn that, despite their growing closeness, there were still some things his father would not talk about.

Namely, his father would still not talk about his mother.

It was during his fourth year, while talking with friends in the Gryffindor common room, that he at last vented his frustration. "I wish I had a mum I could remember," he said petulantly, as he watched Paul pass around the huge box of chocolates he had received from his own mum.

"I wish my mum was as famous as yours!" Kelly blurted out. Several of the others nodded in agreement.

"Famous?" Tristan said, heart pounding. "My mum's not famous."

"Ginny Weasley? Of course she is!" Nigel cried. "Everyone knows her name. Your dad's too. You're a regular celebrity, mate."

_Ginny_. Tristan could scarcely contain himself. At long last, his mother had a name.

"It's thanks to her that my dad could kill Tom Riddle," James said seriously. "She Stunned a Death Eater that was trying to attack him from behind." He shook his head. "My dad talks about your mum all of the time. I think they went out before your parents got married, but my mum doesn't mind."

"Did they?" Tristan said.

"You really didn't know that?" Nigel said, frowning. "Merlin, I would've thought your dad would've told you all about it. My mum calls your parents one of the great modern love stories, whatever that means."

"It's romantic, that's what it means," Kelly said, rolling her eyes at the stupidity of boys.

Tristan went through the rest of the day automatically, paying little attention to what went on around him. He had come up with his own theories, of course, of why his father never mentioned his mother -- they included betrayal, infidelity, secrecy, numerous things that only the mind of a teenage boy would come up with. Never before had he considered love. What did that mean, that his parents were a great modern love story? Where was his mother? Why had she left them if she loved his father so much?

He at last went to the Hogwarts library, determined to find out as much as he could. But even here, the information he desired was oddly missing. There were many, many books on the first war against Tom Riddle, and almost none about the second. A few random mentions in history books, a note about Harry Potter's stunning victory over the infamous Dark Lord, and nothing else. Surely something was wrong here?

Tristan went home the next June more curious than ever, more thirsty than before to learn about the shadowy figure of his past that was his mother. Why would no one speak of her? Was his father so wealthy that he had been able to pay off everyone in the Wizarding world in exchange for their silence? It certainly seemed that way, but the question remained: _why_?

He decided to wait to approach his father about it, for if his father reacted badly, he didn't want to have to spend the entire summer at odds with him. So he hid his curiosity with a smile, and he and his father took spectacular holidays to Greece and South Africa, and went to Quidditch matches, and talked about school and girls and anything that concerned Tristan -- except for the one thing that concerned him the most.

Tristan's birthday was in late July. His father always let him sleep in, then spend the afternoon playing Quidditch with his friends, before they went and had a huge party at the Leaky Cauldron. This year, though, Tristan rose early, dressed, and hunted down his father, unable to wait any longer. He would corner him if he had to, and demand answers to all of his questions.

He knocked three times on his father's bedroom door, and when there was no answer, he let himself in. A cursory glance around the room showed that the bed had been slept in and was now empty, but a peculiar stone basin sat on the bedside table, glowing with a strange light. Tristan had never seen anything like it before, and caution was not one of his strong points. He approached it and looked in.

A blurry image floated in the shining liquid in the basin -- it looked like people dancing, like at the ball Tristan and his father had recently attended at Zabini Manor. The image faded in and out, and Tristan bent closer to get a better look.

The moment the tip of his nose touched the surface, he suddenly felt himself falling, falling through nothingness, until he fell with an ungainly _oof _onto a cool, smooth surface.

Tristan gaped. Whatever had just happened, he had somehow entered the scene he had just been looking at.

Witches in beautiful gowns twirled around him, none familiar, with wizards in their finest black dress robes. Getting up, Tristan trod on the hem of a woman's dress, but when he apologized to her she hardly noticed him. It was as if she couldn't even see him. Frowning, Tristan looked around.

And gaped in shock when he realized where he was. This was _their _ballroom, the ballroom at Malfoy Manor, brightly lit and decorated with flowers, blooming from every corner. As long as Tristan had lived he had never seen their ballroom look like this, so full of life and guests and laughter and happiness. The room had been locked for the past eight years, ever since Tristan had snuck in and started running around pretending he was being chased by Tom Riddle.

"Fred, George, don't you _dare_ do what I think you're about to do." A familiar voice reached his ears, and Tristan spun to see his favorite uncles and his grandmum -- but they looked different. Uncle Fred, for one thing, still had the earlobe on his right ear, and Grandmum looked younger.

Uncle Fred groaned. "Aw, Mum, Ginny said she _expected_ us to play a prank tonight."

"Yes, she said she expected it because she knows you," Grandmum went on, glaring at them. "That doesn't mean she wants you to."

"I don't think you should do any pranks." The airy, dreamy voice of Tristan's batty Aunt Luna came from behind him, and Tristan watched as she floated towards Uncle George and rested her hand on his arm. "This is Ginny's night. Let her enjoy it."

Tristan turned away from them, heart pounding.

She was here. _His mother was here_.

At once, he began plunging through the crowds of people that filled the ballroom, eyes scanning over everyone. He saw even more people he knew: there were Aunt Fleur and Uncle Bill, Aunt Fleur's pregnant belly jutting out in front of her and a three-year-old boy sleeping in Uncle Bill's arms. Aunt Fleur was jabbering angrily about something in French while Uncle Bill tried vainly to interject: "_Ma cherie -- je sais, mais -- oui, mais --_" Tristan went past them.

Uncle Harry leaned against the refreshment table, a glass of champagne in hand, humming along with the music, while Aunt Romilda swayed beside him. Surprised, Tristan realized that neither of them were wearing their wedding rings. On the other side of them was his father's best friend Theodore Nott, looking much younger than Tristan ever remembered, and a pretty witch that wasn't his wife was leaning up against him, whispering something into his ear.

He moved away from the walls, having gone around the perimeter of the massive ballroom, and headed for the center. She had to be there. His mother had to be there.

Tristan had walked around a particularly plump old witch when his eye was caught by a woman all in white. He turned and saw a bride, her gown long and trailing behind her, encrusted with pearls and silk flowers. Burnished copper hair, caught up in diamond-studded pins, curled round her lovely face, and her red lips were spread in a wide smile.

Tristan's breath caught. There was a grace to her movements that was almost ethereal, a glow about her that drew him toward her and made him want to watch her forever. Her brown eyes were warm and inviting, her nose lightly dusted with freckles that nearly mirrored the ones scattered across Tristan's own face. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

She turned, and he finally caught a look at her dance partner. His long blond hair was pulled back with a plain leather thong, his black dress robes perfectly pressed and immaculate. His forehead rested on hers, and his eyes were closed as they slowly rocked back and forth, mindless of the beat of the music and the people dancing around them.

Tristan's heart rose in his throat. He knew who that man was.

She murmured something to him -- her partner, her groom, her lover -- and he opened his eyes to reveal the gray orbs Tristan knew so well. He laughed with abandon at what she had said, and pressed a fervent kiss to her forehead and then one to her lips which she eagerly returned. He said something back and Tristan, desperate to hear them, moved closer.

"-- intimidated by me in the least," Tristan's younger, happier father said.

"Probably not," the bride said. "But Fred and George have great respect for some of those hexes you're so good at. They know what this night means for us."

"Yes?" Tristan's father said teasingly. "And what does this night mean for us?"

The smile sank from her face as she gazed into his eyes. "Everything," she whispered. Tristan inched closer. "The beginning of our lives together, the start of something wonderful." She moved one of her hands from his shoulder and touched the side of his face. "You're everything to me, Draco, and I still can't believe how much in love you I am --"

He stopped and kissed her, clinging to her with white-knuckled hands. "I will always love you, Ginny," he breathed, "I will always be yours," and he kissed her again, so powerfully that Tristan felt a hot blush creep into his cheeks, and he looked away in embarrassment.

He looked away to see a man standing only a few feet away from him, watching them. Tears streamed down his thin cheeks, and his hands trembled as he held his long blond hair away from his face, as though afraid of missing even a moment between the lovers before them. He had premature aging lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and a weight about him that belonged to a much older man.

_Dad_.

His movement had drawn attention to him, and his father turned to see him standing there.

"Tristan." His voice was deadly soft.

"I'm sorry, Dad," Tristan stuttered, "I wanted to see -- is she my mum? Is that --"

"Get out of here!" His father lunged forward and grabbed his arm hard enough to bruise, and dragged Tristan away from the image of himself and his red-haired bride. "What do you think you're doing here?"

Then they were rising up, and up, and they were back beside his father's bed, his father livid above him. Tristan fell to the floor, still unsteady on his feet. "I've told you not to come into my room," his father bellowed, eyes bright with rage. "You've directly disobeyed me --"

"I'm sorry," Tristan wept, hiding his face. "I just wanted to see --"

"You saw _nothing_."

"She's my mum!" he screamed, red-faced. "You can't keep her from me!"

"I can and will!" He grabbed Tristan's arm again and hauled him across the room and out the door. "If I ever find you meddling with my things again, I'll withdraw you from Hogwarts and send you to Durmstrang." With that, he slammed the door behind him and left Tristan a whimpering pile on the hallway floor.

There was no Quidditch game with his friends that day. There was no birthday party at the Leaky Cauldron that night. Tristan heard them all come to the front door of the Manor, inquiring of the house elves what was wrong, and the elves turned them all back. The Master was unwell, they said, and Young Master didn't want to disturb him in his illness. A small stack of birthday presents accumulated in Tristan's bedroom, as he lay on his side on his bed, but he couldn't even muster enough enthusiasm to open them.

All he could think about was her. His mother, the lovely redhead who was unlike any other woman he'd ever seen. How she had looked at his father with such love and devotion in her eyes, and how his father had looked back at her. They had been happy at that ball he had just witnessed -- which he realized now had been their wedding day. They had been the happiest people on earth.

And then something had happened, and Tristan's mother had gone, and Tristan's father had become the sad, lightless man that he was today.

His grandmother came up to see him the next day, looking oddly tired and upset. Tristan stood respectfully when she entered his room, and kissed her cheek in greeting. "Grandmother Narcissa," he said. "You've come for my birthday, I suppose?"

"It's not every day your only grandson turns fifteen," she said, but her forced smile sank away at once. "I know what's happened, child," she whispered. "Draco told me just now."

"I shouldn't have gone into his room," Tristan said, turning away. "I know that now, and I --"

"No, you don't know, darling." His grandmother lightly touched his shoulder and made him turn to face her. "We respected his wishes at first, for he was so distraught -- beside himself, really. I thought we would have to call for a Healer to sedate him..." She blinked once or twice, and released a shaky breath. "The truth is, Tristan darling, that certain things has been hidden from you for far too long. You deserve more than this. I've been telling Draco that for years, and then something like this had to happen..."

"Who was that red-haired woman I saw him dancing with?" Tristan said. "In the stone basin in his room? Is that my mother?"

His grandmother arched an eyebrow. "Are you not even going to properly invite me in, darling?" Tristan retreated at once, apologizing for his oversight, and escorted her into the sitting room in his private suite, asking his house elf to bring them some tea and biscuits.

"The stone basin is called a Pensieve," she explained, stirring sugar into her tea some minutes later. "It stores memories, so that one might enter them and find small details they might not have noticed before. Your mother acquired it before you were born, in order to keep some of her memories, and Draco added to it as well. He has been using it for the past fifteen years to relive his memories of your mother -- who, yes, is the red-haired woman you saw."

"Where did she go?" Tristan asked, tea forgotten. "When I saw them, they were so in love, Grandmother Narcissa. Why did she leave us?"

"Oh, child, she did not leave by choice." His grandmother reached out and clasped one of his hands in hers. "She died bringing you into this world. Your father gave you the name Tristan for the grief we all felt on losing her."

Everything clicked then. "_L'enfant de la tristesse_," he said.

"'The child of sorrow,'" Grandmother Narcissa murmured.

Tristan swallowed back the lump in his throat. "So he hates me," he whispered.

"He certainly does not," his grandmother huffed. "If he did, I would have quite a few words to say to him. After Ginny passed away, Draco was inconsolable, and we all foolishly thought it would be best to let him deal with his grief in his own way, instead of forcing ourselves upon him. But years went by. He drinks far more than he used to, and pays you so little attention, and spends his days wallowing in the past. The time has come for him to finally move on, and he'll need all the help you can give him."

"Me? But what can I do?"

His grandmother smiled sadly. "You can love him, darling. As your mother did, and as I do."

Tristan felt better after speaking with his grandmother, as he always did, and he bid her good day when she left. He thought about what she had told him for days afterwards, while he finally opened his birthday presents and sent off thank you notes to each gift giver. But how was he to go about helping his father? It had already been fifteen years since his mother had died, and if his father still hadn't moved on, who was to say that he ever would?

The problem was solved for him a few weeks later -- on August eleventh, to be precise. Tristan had no idea what the date signified, but whatever it meant, his father came to him on that day.

"Come with me," he said, not quite meeting his eyes. "I have something to show you." Curious, Tristan followed his father down the hallway until they reached his bedroom. The Pensieve now sat on a larger table, away from the bed, and was glowing again.

His father gestured to it. "You know how to get in," he said. Tristan swallowed, wondering what he was about to see. Nevertheless he bent his head until his nose touched the cool liquid in the basin, and felt again the sensation of falling through nothing.

This time, he did not land in a packed ballroom at a wedding reception. He was, surprisingly, in the fields surrounding the Burrow, with the sun out and beating down on his fair skin. Had it not been a memory, Tristan would have cast some Sun Protection Charms.

Another moment went by and then his father was standing behind him. "This way," he said, and he led Tristan away from the tilting Burrow, towards the pond Tristan knew lay hidden back near the trees. A pale figure stood amidst the golden wheat, stock still in his black robes. They walked to him.

"Draco!"

A young girl's cry interrupted the silence, and they both turned to see a beautiful red-haired girl running towards them, her hair streaming out behind her like a banner. She had a bright smile on her face, and was laughing.

"You're late, Weasley." Tristan looked back and saw the pale figure was his father, not older than twenty, standing with his arms crossed over his chest. A smile twitched at his lips.

His mother rolled her eyes as she approached, and leaned over her knees as she stopped and caught her breath. "Late? It's _my_ birthday, Malfoy, and don't you forget it. I can come and go as I please, thank you very much."

He laughed and pulled her close for a chaste kiss. "So I suppose you'll be wanting your gift?"

"Ooh, yes!"

He laughed again and looked towards the Burrow briefly before turning back to her. "I spent days looking for just the right one," he began.

She grinned. "Because I know how picky you are," she teased.

"Only the best for you, love." He took a step away, then dropped to one knee.

The giddiness vanished from her face. "Draco...?"

"Ginny." Tristan thought his father looked exceptionally nervous. "I love you, so much more than I thought I could."

"I love you too," she said softly.

His father reached into his pocket and withdrew a black velvet box. He opened it to reveal a tasteful, elegant diamond ring. "Ginny Weasley," his father said, gazing directly into her eyes, "will you marry me?"

His mother gaped at him for a moment, and another. His father shifted uncomfortably. "This is the part where you answer, Weasley," he snapped.

"Oh Merlin, Draco," she cried, "as if I'd say anything but yes!" He stood and she flung her arms around him, weeping with joy.

His father touched his shoulder and the scene before them swirled away, making Tristan feel slightly ill, until they arrived at another scene, in another memory: their wedding day. His mother looked radiant and supremely happy as they exchanged vows in the gardens of Malfoy Manor, and everyone cheered as his father leaned in to give her their first kiss as a married couple.

After that were memories from their honeymoon in Spain, as they explored the narrow streets of Barcelona together, hand in hand. Then more memories, of his mother decorating Malfoy Manor in her own way, and the vicious, heated arguments that ended with -- "I don't want to scar you for life," Tristan's father said as they left the memory, just as his younger self began sliding his hands under Tristan's mother's shirt.

After that was the memory of the day she told him she was pregnant, and Tristan saw how she looked lovelier than ever, despite the sickness and weakness that had started coming over her, even then. His father had shouted with excitement and pulled her around the room in an impromptu waltz. He did not see the memories where the Healers told his father that it was an unusually difficult pregnancy, but Tristan wasn't stupid. He could see the anxiety in his young father's eyes in other memories, as his mother began to really look pregnant, and see the desperation with which he held her in his arms, and how he looked at her.

"One more," his father said hoarsely. "This is your mother's memory, not mine. She put it into the Pensieve just for you." They went to a bright, sunny bedroom that Tristan had never seen before, and he realized -- this must have been their bedroom before. This must have been the door that was locked at the far end of the first floor corridor, that Tristan had always wondered about.

His mother stood by the open window, a summer breeze drifting into the room and lifting her red curls into the air. She looked thinner than ever in her face and limbs, but before her, her belly swelled round and full, cradled between her two hands. She sang something under her breath as she rubbed her belly, and his father let him go closer to her, until she was close enough to touch.

"I know you're a boy," she whispered, smiling a little. "I don't know how, but I can kind of tell. And I think...you'll have Draco's gray eyes -- though they'll be a bit bluer, since there's blue eyes in my family."

Tristan's blue eyes widened.

"And your hair...will be an interesting mix of ours," she went on, laughing. "Not pink, not like Harry likes to tease us, but...blond. With some reddish highlights. And it'll be thick like mine, not thin and fine like Draco's."

Tristan bit down hard on his lip, trying not to cry. She was describing him perfectly, as though she _knew_ him.

She looked down at her stomach and rubbed it thoughtfully. "You'll be a Quidditch player, certainly," she said. "Possibly a Seeker, though Chaser is just as likely. And you'll be a Gryffindor, which will annoy Draco to no end at first, but he'll get over it. Your friends will all be the children of our friends, and you'll have the same adventures we did at Hogwarts, but with significantly less danger involved." She tilted her head to one side. "Fred and George will try desperately to corrupt you, but will fail. You're too good and sweet to think of hurting people. You'll be excellent in your classes, since you'll have Draco's innate intelligence coupled with my patience, and leave Hogwarts near the top of your year. And after..." An odd little smile graced her lips. "Well, after that, my darling boy, the world is yours for the taking." She sighed and gave a half-laugh, half-sob. "I love you so much already, do you know that? We haven't even met yet, and I already feel like I know you, inside and out. Draco will love you on sight, I know, and I know that the love I feel now will just be multiplied a thousandfold." She bit her lip. "If I don't live to see you grow up, you should know that you will always be my little boy, and wherever I am, I will always watch over you. I promise you, do you hear me?" She spoke to her belly, and then chuckled. "I'll take that kick as a yes, then."

"That's me," Tristan whispered. "She knew everything about me."

"She does watch over us, you know," his father said, gazing hungrily at his wife. He ran a hand through his own hair. "I can sense her near me sometimes, and she knows how much of a fool I've been when it comes to you." He turned to Tristan, and met his eyes. "Yes, I've been a fool," he said softly. "I've seen only her, and I haven't seen you. Not properly, anyway. And I can't beg enough for your forgiveness, Tris."

"I just want you around, Dad," Tristan said. "That's all."

His father sighed. "That's all I want too," he said, and Tristan went to him and hugged his father.

Later that night, back in the dining room where they toasted his mother on what would have been her thirty-eighth birthday, his father answered at last all of his questions about her. "I think she loved the simple fact that you would be born in July," he said, smiling at nothing. "My birthday is in June, hers in August, and you right in the middle between us." He set down his butterbeer. "She wanted a big family, you know. Five children, I think. Maybe six, I don't remember. I was prepared to talk her out of it after the third was born."

"When did you know that she was...you know." Tristan blushed, thinking of Kelly at school, and how he became tongue-tied around her.

"The one?" His father laughed at the expression on his face. "I didn't really, I don't think. It just kind of crept up on me. I woke up one morning and was already there, at the point where I couldn't exist without her."

"When I was born --" Tristan paused, frowning. He wasn't sure how to ask his question, but his father answered it anyway.

"The day you were born was the happiest and saddest day of my life," he said quietly. "After she -- after I watched her -- I refused to let go of you. They put you in my arms once they cleaned you up, and you stayed there the whole time, while she -- I wouldn't let anyone else take you from me. And I was so scared, Tris." His father bent his head over his butterbeer in a vain attempt at hiding his tears. "It was you and me against the world. I thought for sure that I could do it, but when you started crying, and my mum told me it meant you were hungry, I felt...helpless." He reached across the table with both hands and gripped onto Tristan's. "I haven't been there for you since, Tris, but I _promise_ you, I will be there for you from this day on. I won't always be the perfect father, certainly not, but never feel like you can't come to me for anything. Anything at all."

In fifteen years, his father had never said so much to him. Things would really change now, he knew, and at last, he would have a real father. A best friend like no other. A mentor, a shoulder to lean on, a foundation. Tristan had to bite back the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes, and he squeezed his father's hands. He felt like laughing when his father squeezed back.

"I want to know all about Mum," he said. "Everything you know about her."

His father clenched his jaw, but nodded. "Of course."

"Will you let me see more of your memories of her?"

His father smirked, looking almost like the man he had been long ago. "You'll give me advance warning first, of course. There are some rather private moments in the Pensieve --"

"Dad! Gross!"

His father burst out laughing for the first time in many, many years. "And what, I suppose you think the stork delivered you, is that it?"

It didn't happen overnight, of course, as many important things don't, but by the time Tristan left Hogwarts and prepared for his role as the Malfoy heir, he and his father were as close as it was possible to be between fathers and sons. His father wasn't going to win any Parent of the Year awards anytime soon, of course, but Tristan adored him just the same. What faults existed in him were ones Tristan shared, after all, and he couldn't hold that against him.

"I think --" He stopped. They were seated on the patio, overlooking the back garden where, twenty-nine years ago, his parents had been married. Inside, the ballroom was full again, filled with guests and food and joy, as it hadn't been in many long years.

His father nudged him. "Now come on, Tris, you can't stop there."

"I think I love Mum now," Tristan said. He went on quickly when it looked as if his father would interrupt. "I mean -- I always have, in a way, I suppose, but just because I was _supposed _to, you know?"

"I think I do," his father said.

"But now that I've seen the memories in the Pensieve -- and Grandmum's pulled out her photo albums, and Uncle Ron and Uncle Harry have started talking about her -- I feel like I really know her now. She was a wonderful person."

"She was," his father agreed.

"I know that now," Tristan said. "And -- I love her. I love that she was my mum, but I suppose I love her differently than most sons love their mothers, because I don't know her as a mother, I know her as she really was -- if that makes sense?"

His father grinned and ruffled his dirty blond hair with the reddish highlights in it. "I think it does," his father said, just as a woman all in white appeared at the ballroom door.

"Here you are, Tris!" she cried, laughing. "Hiding, are you?"

Tristan grinned and went to her. "Just chatting with Dad, that's all."

She rolled her eyes. "Only you would spend your wedding day with someone besides your new wife, Tristan Malfoy." She looked around him at his father. "You don't mind if I steal your son for a few dances, do you, Mr. Malfoy?"

"You can have him for keeps, Kelly," Draco said, and she laughed again and pulled his son back into the ballroom. He stood as though to follow after them, but then something out in the garden caught his eye.

Draco turned and faced out towards the dark gardens, glinting blue-gray in the moonlight from above. Ginny had loved the gardens, and spent hours in them caring for the plants. A small cluster of daisies and daffodils was the only legacy she had left behind, for Draco had ripped up everything else.

There it was again.

He descended from the patio and entered the thick green growth, damp from the recent rain and drenched in heady perfume. He didn't come here very often, leaving it for the house elves to care for, but now, now --

He entered into the heart of the gardens, where the four stone-paved paths met at a crossroads, and there she was, swaying to the music leaking out of the ballroom, singing along with the words in her sweet, airy voice.

"I'm so proud of him, Draco," she said, turning to look at him. "You've done right by him."

"So have you," he whispered.

"Tell him I love him -- and that he'd better get to work giving me grandchildren," she said, grinning.

"I think Molly's already approached him on that subject," Draco said, smirking back.

"And tell him -- let him know that no matter what happens, we'll always be there for him, in our own ways."

"I will."

Already, she was fading out of sight. "I love you, Draco."

"I will always love you, Ginny," he said.

He saw her smile one last time, before she became one with the night.


End file.
